He was tall but very thin and had a slight stoop. He wore a haggard and
mournful look except when he was drinking or playing on his flute. He was very good
on his flute, and his happiest moments were the two or three moons after the harvest
when the village musicians brought down their instruments, hung above the fireplace.
Unoka would play with them, his face beaming with blessedness and peace. Sometimes
another village would ask Unoka's band and their dancing egwugwu to come and stay
with them and teach them their tunes. They would go to such hosts for as long as three
or four markets, making music and feasting. Unoka loved the good hire and the good
fellowship, and he loved this season of the year, when the rains had stopped and the sun
rose every morning with dazzling beauty. And it was not too hot either, because the cold
and dry harmattan wind was blowing down Irom the north. Some years the harmattan
was very severe and a dense haze hung on the atmosphere. Old men and children would
then sit round log fires, warming their bodies. Unoka loved it all, and he loved the first
kites that returned with the dry season, and the children who sang songs of welcome to
them. He would remember his own childhood, how he had often wandered around
looking for a kite sailing leisurely against the blue sky. As soon as he found one he
would sing with his whole being, welcoming it back from its long, long journey, and
asking it if it had brought home any lengths of cloth.
That was years ago, when he was young. Unoka, the grown-up, was a failure. He
was poor and his wife and children had barely enough to eat. People laughed at him
because he was a loafer, and they swore never to lend him any more money because he
never paid back. But Unoka was such a man that he always succeeded in borrowing
more, and piling up his debts.
One day a neighbour called Okoye came in to see him. He was reclining on a
mud bed in his hut playing on the flute. He immediately rose and shook hands with
Okoye, who then unrolled the goatskin which he carried under his arm, and sat down.
Unoka went into an inner room and soon returned with a small wooden disc containing
a kola nut, some alligator pepper and a lump of white chalk.
"I have kola," he announced when he sat down, and passed the disc over to his
guest.